The present invention relates generally to spacecraft, and more specifically, to a spacecraft radiator system comprising a cross-coupled deployable thermal radiators and spacecraft heat dissipation method.
The assignee of the present invention manufactures and deploys spacecraft into geosynchronous and low earth orbits. Such spacecraft use a radiator system to dissipate heat. The radiator system transfers thermal energy to radiator panels where it is radiated into space.
A spacecraft radiator system previously developed by the assignee of the present invention uses deployable thermal radiators currently couples a north facing payload radiator to a north facing deployable thermal radiator and a south facing payload radiator to a south facing deployable thermal radiator.
Thermal coupling of fixed radiator systems is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/377,442, filed Aug. 19, 1999, entitled “Spacecraft Radiator System Using Crossing Heat Pipes”, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,749,156 issued to Fletcher et al. entitled “Thermal Control System for a Spacecraft Modular Housing”. The teachings of this patent which would accomplish nearly the same thing but in a different manner as the present invention, but results in lower performance.
The prior art discusses coupling of fixed radiator systems, no prior art discusses deployable systems. Prior art uses fixed conductance conventional heat pipes to couple the fixed radiators, this invention uses flexible loop heat pipes to couple the fixed radiator to a deployable radiator. In the prior art, the solar load is incident on the fixed radiator and coupling the panels shares the solar load, whereas, this design inherently minimizes the solar load to the system.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to provide for heat dissipating apparatus comprising a spacecraft radiator system comprising a cross-coupled deployable thermal radiators and a spacecraft heat dissipation method.